Wednesday, August 26, 2009

From Honduras

The following open letter was printed in the Honduran newspapers yesterday, in Spanish, of course. It is from Carlos López Contreras, Foreign Minister of Honduras, addressed to the Citizens of World.Happily, a translation to English was also performed. You can read the original letter in Spanish in the newspapers [I haven't been able to find it online yet], or the English translation here. I'm including the letter in full here because I want everyone to read it and I know that some won't click links or don't have the ability to open PDF files.

SECRETARIA DE RELACIONES EXTERIORESDE LA REPUBLICA DE HONDURAS

An Open Letter to the Citizens of the World

from Carlos López Contreras, Foreign Minister of Honduras

As citizens of an increasingly smaller and interconnected global community, we are all responsible for respecting one other and for creating a better world together. Our diverse cultures, religions, and forms of government must continually search for ways to understand one another and work together.

In Honduras, we have always worked diligently to uphold this responsibility as inhabitants of a global village. We have always remained steadfast in our commitment, and this past month is no exception. In fact, it is an example of what we must all vow to do from time to time: hold true to the principals of democracy and the rule of law while protecting the human and civil rights of our fellow citizens in the face of criticism and misunderstanding by certain sectors of the international community.

Let me be clear about what we as Hondurans believe. We believe in the rights of every person to freely express themselves and their beliefs so long as it is done in accordance with the rule of law. We encourage full and equal participation in political discourse and believe that a free and unfettered press is a valuable part of that discourse. We believe that the Honduran government must act in accordance with the Constitution that establishes and limits its power to govern.

As the Minister of Foreign Affairs, I am charged with representing the Honduran government and its people before the world. Now more than ever, my job is to bring an understanding to our shared global community of our dedication to uphold these beliefs, and ask each of you to consider our views as we consider yours.

Yes, Manuel Zelaya was democratically elected as the Honduran President. We cherish democracy.

Yes, as President, he did abuse his power and violate the Constitution. We respect our Constitution.

Yes, his powers as President were automatically forfeited after our Attorney General investigated the violation and our Supreme Court ruled that the violation had occurred. We respect the rule of law.

Yes, the military was ordered to arrest him as part of their Constitutional duty. We know this appearance might seem troubling to some, but it is clearly written in our Constitution -and has always been a part of our Constitution.

Yes, it was a mistake to remove Manuel Zelaya, a Honduran national, from the country. We admit the error and are aware that there are consequences.

Those consequences are that the Constitution and rule of law must be upheld. And so, the Attorney General opened an investigation into the expatriation of Manuel Zelaya on July 4th, and we await the findings of this investigation.

We, the Honduran people, firmly believe that those consequences are not any of the following:

• The restitution of the Presidential powers of Manuel Zelaya. This is not an option the Honduran Constitution grants to the government. In fact, it is clear that the exact opposite must take place. No powers under any circumstances.

• The granting of amnesty to Manuel Zelaya by the executive branch. This is a proscribed duty of the Congress. and the Congress alone. This is their power, and theirs alone.

• The unilateral decision to negotiate breaking articles of the Constitution in order to satisfy some members of the international community. Popular opinion by powerful nations does not rule our nation, and should not rule any country.

Please consider what is being asked of our country: Break the Constitution. Ignore the rule of law.

We simply can not do this because of a mistake in expatriating a Honduran national who had been Constitutionally stripped of the powers that democracy provided to him only to have him abuse them.

We would never ask another nation to ignore its Constitution and trample on the rule of law much less purposely violate its Constitution to please our opinion.

Each day, our citizens wake up and hope that through our insistence and dedication that we can bring understanding to others. We are thankful to friends who have courageously spoken up on our behalf. We are grateful for their support, and are humbled that they have chosen to work selflessly alongside us to bring other nations to understanding our commitment to democracy, the Constitution and the rule of law.

We are a little country among the community of nations but our nation's larger mission is to protect human rights, democracy, the Constitution and the rule of law. We are confident that these are values worth standing firmly in order to uphold. We invite the world to examine our true intentions and decide for themselves. As we prepare to hold free and fair elections this coming November, our faith in these principles could not be more clear.

and this is interesting:

These 10 questions were prepared by the UCD for the OAS (Organization of American States). Unión Cívica Democrática is a large group of Honduran civic groups working to ensure the truth about what happened in Honduras gets published.

I do not believe that you can read these questions without seeing the glaring hypocrisy of the OAS.

Ten questions for the foreign ministers’ commission that visits Honduras on behalf of the Organization of American States

Why is the OAS.......?

REJECTING constitutional succession in Honduras,but VOUCHING for the electoral fraud in Nicaragua and for the indefinite reelection of Hugo Chávez?

PREACHING non-intervention in the internal affairs of nations,while INTERFERING in the constitutional and democratic processes of Honduras?

PRETENDING to be a champion of the rule of law,but IGNORING the Honduran Constitution, which was repeatedly violated by Zelaya?

CRITICIZING the alleged repression of news media in Honduras,but KEEPING QUIET in light of the arbitrary closing of dozens of radio stations in Venezuela?And KEEPING QUIET in light of the government in Ecuador threatening to do the same?

PREACHING about the defense of democracy,while ALLOWING governments that are allegedly democratic to support the drug trade, which is so harmful for true democracies?

CONDEMNING Operation Phoenix, which was carried out by the Colombian government against a terrorist organization,but FAILING TO CONDEMN the fact that rocket launchers sold to Venezuela landed in the hands of the FARC guerrillas?

PRETENDING to support a mediated solution to the Honduran crisis,but PRESSURING for the acceptance of imposed, rather than negotiated, terms?

QUESTIONING the security measures taken by the Honduran government,but IGNORING repeated calls by Zelaya for mobs to rise up and engage in the kind of violence that has already resulted in the loss of life?

PROCLAIMING solidarity with the Honduran people,but REFUSING TO HEAR OUT the overwhelming number of members of Honduran society who categorically reject a corrupt and failed leader, who repeatedly demonstrated that he values his personal interests above those of his people?

On behalf of Honduran civil society, UNION CIVICA DEMOCRATICA requests that the honorable foreign ministers who visit us tomorrow give the Honduran people a public answer for each of these questions.

May these answers enable the citizens of the entire American continent to understand the motivations of the organization that represents them.

In the Spirit of Vatican II...

We are a diverse community, united in the tradition of St. Dominic, joyfully obedient to the Word of God spoken in His Catholic Church. We accept willingly in faith the defined teachings of the Church's ordinary and universal magisterium. We acknowledge also our duty to adhere with religious assent to those teachings which are authoritatively, even if not infallibly, proposed by the Church [Lumen Gentium, 25]

Next Retreat

Our next retreat will be the 12th annual Mary Magdalene retreat at Homedale Chapter House. Although planning has not been finalized, save the retreat dates: Friday and Saturday, Jul 15-17, 2016. There will be presentations, Masses, Adoration, and good company. Fr Vincent Kelber OP, Pastor of Holy Rosary Parish, Portland, will be our Retreat Master.

Contributors

FIGHT FOCA!

Sophia

Lumen Dominicanus

Dear Holy Father Dominic,

Hear our prayer and take it to our Father in heaven. We ask for your protection for the Order of Preachers and most especially the chapter of Blessed Margaret of Castello; that we be right minded with Holy Mother the Church and that we have the courage to live and preach your word. Amen.

Social Justice

It makes no sense that we grant the use of unrestricted lethal force to a citizen with no judicial oversight, and simultaneously claim that the state has no right to the use of restricted lethal force with full judicial oversight.

"Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It's wholly inadequate to the government of any other."- John Adams, 2nd US president, Oct 11, 1798

The child, who does not think about so serious a thing as health, dreams of meals that are made up of desserts. Men and women, who do not think about so serious a thing as living, dream of a life that consists only of sweetness, soft music and rest to the echo of applause and gently sympathetic understanding. But meals are never like that; neither is life. In the same vein, our modern men and women dream of God as a being of whom no one could ever be afraid, a gentle, stupid god who would allow men and women to ruin themselves and then admire them for the work they had done in destroying his masterpiece. You see they never really think about God, for God is not like that.

Cdl Arinze speaks:

Why make the people of God suffer so much? Haven't we enough problems already? Only Sunday, one hour, they come to adore God. And you bring a dance! Are you so poor you have nothing else to bring us? Shame on you! That's how I feel about it.
If people want to dance, they know where to go.

A Modern Lexicon

Liturgeist - What you get when the poltergeist of Vatican II possesses a "Liturgist"

Ad Oscillating - When a Priest in fan-shaped church turns like a lawn sprinkler to make eye contact with everyone.

Stolecism - The practice, always and everwhere to be reprehended, of wearing a stold over a chasuble, instead of the other way around.

Hyperstolecism- The practice of not only wearing the stole over the chasuble, but wearing the wrong-colored stole in an attempt to be cute (e.g., a green stole over a purple chasuble for St. Patrick's Day).

Crusurpation- When a lay extraordinary minister of Holy Communion attempts to bestow a priestly blessing upon a child or a non-Catholic during Communion.

Shambulation- The priestly practice of strutting around the sanctuary during the homily, instead of delivering the homily from the pulpit.

New Cosmetology- Usually abreviated "New Cosmology," an alternate reality where the universe of make-up and hair styling destroys habits and obedience.

Ad-liburgy- The priestly practice of making up rubrics on the fly.

Gagnificent- bad contemporary art used wherever sacred art should be (think of the Los Angeles Cathedral).

This list will grow if you send me your recommendations

Thomas explains

I answer that, Neither living nor lifeless faith remains in a heretic who disbelieves one article of faith.

The reason of this is that the species of every habit depends on the formal aspect of the object, without which the species of the habit cannot remain. Now the formal object of faith is the First Truth, as manifested in Holy Writ and the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth. Consequently whoever does not adhere, as to an infallible and Divine rule, to the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth manifested in Holy Writ, has not the habit of faith, but holds that which is of faith otherwise than by faith. Even so, it is evident that a man whose mind holds a conclusion without knowing how it is proved, has not scientific knowledge, but merely an opinion about it. Now it is manifest that he who adheres to the teaching of the Church, as to an infallible rule, assents to whatever the Church teaches; otherwise, if, of the things taught by the Church, he holds what he chooses to hold, and rejects what he chooses to reject, he no longer adheres to the teaching of the Church as to an infallible rule, but to his own will. Hence it is evident that a heretic who obstinately disbelieves one article of faith, is not prepared to follow the teaching of the Church in all things; but if he is not obstinate, he is no longer in heresy but only in error. Therefore it is clear that such a heretic with regard to one article has no faith in the other articles, but only a kind of opinion in accordance with his own will. (Summa, IIa IIae Q5 a3)

Hillaire Belloc in his commentary on Modernism as a heresy states: "[t]here is no such thing as a religion called "Christianity" - there never has been such a religion". "There is and always has been the Church, and various heresies proceeding from a rejection of some of the Church's doctrines by men who still desire to retain the rest of her teaching and morals. But there never has been and never can be or will be a general Christian religion professed by men who all accept some central important doctrines, while agreeing to differ about others. There has always been from the beginning and will always be the Church, and sundry heresies either doomed to decay, or, like Mohammedanism, to grow into a separate religion. Of a common Christianity there never has been and never can be a definition, for it has never existed."

Belloc goes on to state, "[t]here is no essential doctrine such that if we can agree upon it we can agree to differ about the rest: as for instance to accept immorality but deny the Trinity. A man will call himself a Christian though he denies the unity of the Christian Church; he will call himself a Christian though he denies the presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament; he will cheerfully call himself a Christian though he denies the Incarnation."

As Belloc states, the battle to retain our liberty is ultimately a battle which will be won or lost based upon our adherence to the truth which rests in the Church and not in some esoteric version of christianity. "No: the quarrel is between the Church and the anti-Church-the Church of God and the anti-God--the Church of Christ and the anti-Christ" Belloc.

"The truth is becoming every day so much more obvious that within a few years it will be universally admitted. I do not entitle the modern attack "anti-Christ" though in my heart I believe that to be the true term for it: No, I do not give it that name because it would seem for the moment exaggerated. But the name doesn't matter. Whether we call it "The Modern Attack" or "anti-Christ" it is all one; there is a clear issue now joined between the retention of Catholic morals, tradition, and authority on the one side, and the active effort to destroy them on the other. The modern attack will not tolerate us. It will attempt to destroy us. Nor can we tolerate it. We must attempt to destroy it as being the fully equipped and ardent enemy of the Truth by which men live. The duel is to the death."

Idaho: home of the Utah Lottery

For there must be also heresies: that they also, who are approved may be made manifest among you. [1 Cor 11:19]

"You seek me", St. Augustine comments, "for the flesh, not for the spirit. How many seek Jesus for no other purpose than that He may do them good in this present life! [...] Scarcely ever is Jesus sought for Jesus' sake" ("In Ioann. Evang.", 25, 10).

Man's whole salvation, which is in God, depends upon the knowledge of this (divinely revealed) truth. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part I, first question, first answer

This, and nothing else, is the purpose of the Church: the salvation of individual souls Benedict XVI – Sao Paolo, Brazil, May 11, 2007